Forgetting 1857 in Meerut

The pull of the present is so strong in Meerut, that many of its first-time voters believe the past is totally irrelevant. At the ‘Ashok ki lat’ memorial, a cement imitation of the Ashoka lion sculpture with its proportions out of place, several score students are assembling because the District Magistrate wants to encourage them to participate in the biggest festival on earth, namely the election here on April 10.

There is a certain self-consciousness to the dark glasses and nicely ironed pant suit that the Dean of the private engineering college wears, along with the belief that his spoken English (despite the blissful lack of tense, conjugation and general grammar), is somehow his passport to upward mobility. He has brought a few students with him. A local chamber of commerce is preparing to distribute Tiger biscuits and water. A couple of men, obviously in theatre dress, stand in the shade.

The memorial complex also contains a statue to Mangal Pandey, but the inscription below only has a vague reference to this soldier from Barrackpore – no reference to why he did what he did and what connects this Bengal town has to Meerut – but several names of IAS and army officers whose “kamal haathon” has dedicated this monument to the nation. There is a museum too, with two rooms, one devoted to photocopies of the 1857 uprising and a purported model of men in red uniform battling hapless Indian sepoys, while the other has photocopies of events devoted to Meerut’s role that year.

Most interesting here is a drawing of a Mrs Chambers who got caught in the cross-fire between her husband’s troops and the ingrate Indian mutineers. With her blondish hair and maxi, she looks like a carbon copy of Miss Muffett, an English nursery rhyme from my youth, her expression more startled than afraid, although these are unusual times. Oh yes, I forgot the bust of Mangal Pandey, sitting forlornly in a circular carpet of dried leaves and overgrown shrubbery.

Mr Gautam, the director of the museum, will have none of my remonstrations, however, about what an inadequate museum this is. In any case, he would rather dispense with this pesky visitor from Dilli by saying, yes, no and yes to all the questions being asked, no matter what the order. He has much more important business to attend to — you guessed it, the DM!

Outside the children are gathering for the function. I ask a group of boys and girls about Mangal Pandey. They haven’t heard of him. What about the First War of Indepedence? Not really, says one, we didn’t really study history in school. One of them, Amit, finally volunteers that Indian soldiers from the lines at Kaali Paltan on the outskirts of Meerut revolted against the British.

They seem far more interested in the present, in Narendra Modi, for example. As first-time voters, they are keenly aware of the burden of responsibility they carry on their shoulders on behalf of the nation. Why will you vote for Modi, I ask. “He do,” says the girl. Woh karta hai. Woh kar ke dikha sakta hai. “Like in Gujarat,” says one boy.

The group moves away. The two young men, Amit and Abid, who have been dressed up to resemble two Muslim men in a village arguing about the importance of the election, agree that Modi is a name to reckon with. “But if I tell you that Modi is not my choice, then you will say I am a Muslim and question my patriotism,” Abid tells me.

Their former college teacher, Deepak Sharma, saunters towards us. He agrees that there is an abysmal lack of schooling, and not only in history, and that the current “leher” in favour of Narendra Modi will most likely also engulf Meerut.

“I know these Hindutva people very well. With my own eyes I saw, how in 1987, Hindu boys killed one of their own, and sought to put the responsibility on Meerut’s Muslims. Since, Hindus have won this seat, except once…this time too the BJP will win because the opposition is divided.”

Deepak Sharma pointed out that the BSP candidate as well as the Samajwadi Party candidate (SP) are both Muslims. But Behen Mayawati hasn’t spoken up and the Muslims are furious with the SP for failing to stop the Muzaffarnagar rioting. The Congress candidate, the film actor Nagma, hardly stands a chance. People are lining up to press the button in favour of the BJP.

At a tea-stall outside the complex, Wasim, who drives a crane, tells me how the presence of Muslims in Meerut’s community life has significantly diminished over time. “In 1857”, says Wasim, “so many of the mutineers were Muslim. Today, when we gather here for an official function, you hardly hear any Muslim names,” he adds.

Salim Mohammed tells me that a small triangular park nearby, in memory of Abdul Hameed, the Lance Naik who single-handedly stopped Pakistani battle tanks in 1965, in the Khem Kharan sector, has now been reduced to a junk-yard and worse.

“If this man, our boy from Uttar Pradesh, hadn’t stopped the Pakistanis, they would have reached Baghpat,” says Salim.

Author

Jyoti Malhotra would like to wake to the sounds of classical music, but there are the kids to get ready for school. Over the whirlwind that comprises the following 24 hours, she finds time to dream about building the Republic of Saket, re-reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories and perchance, creating a cookbook that would chart Narayani Kutty Unnikrishnan's journey from the Malabar uplands to Moscow.

Jyoti Malhotra would like to wake to the sounds of classical music, but there are the kids to get ready for school. Over the whirlwind that comprises the fo. . .